


Winter in my veins

by KiriJones



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And all that entails, Gen, House Bolton, House Stark, Ramsay Bolton's baby, Ramsay is his own warning, Wargs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 18:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8112970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiriJones/pseuds/KiriJones
Summary: Lady Arra Bolton is the often ignored of Queen Sansa Stark of the North and the bastard and monster Ramsay Bolton. Born in the midst of a war Arra growing up in the aftermath the young girl has often been ignored by her mother for as long as she can remember. Fostered in Bear Island and then sent to rule the Dreadfort Arra is independent but yearns for somewhere to belong. But when her younger brother's name day comes around and she is summoned to Winterfell Arra may finally get her chance. But some lessons never come easy and soon the young woman with her father's eyes and her grandfather's dark hair will be forged into something none of them saw coming.





	1. Snow Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unwanted child comes to court surrounded with mystery and fury.

The eldest child of Queen Sansa Stark of the North, First of her name, stands tall before the throne of Winterfell. She is of medium stature with pale skin but freckles paint her skin. Cloaked in a dark grey cloak over a forest green dress lean limbs are seen under the dress. A belt drapes across her middle with a handful of small blades adorning it. Her dark hair, the exact color of many Stark that have come before her is pulled back into a simple braid that runs to mid back. It is obvious is is wavy when loose but it shines in the midday light. Her ivory skin is flawless and she looks as if she was chiseled from stone. All in all she looks like her her aunt Arya Stark and also echoes of Ned Stark can be seen in her serious expression. But it is the eyes that give the child away. It is her eyes that have damned and marked her since birth. For she has her father's eyes.

Eyes that are piercing and pale and cold. It is like looking into two blocks of eyes, the large eyes that are like milk and stone all rolled into one. They belonged to Ramsay Bolton and his father Roose and previous members of their line. And it was looking into those eyes that made Sansa Stark seemingly incapable of feeling anything aside from disgust and ignorance for her first born child. It is these eyes that give nothing away as she stands before the throne to pay homage to her mother and her heir. 

Everyone in the North knows of how fiercely Sansa Stark loves her litter of children. All of them know how she has cut down foes and razed fortresses to keep them safe. All know except Arra Bolton, Lady of the Dreadfort and the last remaining member of House Bolton. Almost nineteen Arra Bolton is often ignored, either politely or with disgust due to the circumstances of her conception and the mere that that she father was a bastard and a monster. 

As her times comes those closet can see Queen Sansa flinch and her face become a mask of ice. Her husband, King Jon Targaryen, squeezes her hand before he looks down at the figure in front of the throne and smiles. It is no secret King Jon does not shares his wife's feeling toward the Lady Arra. In fact is he had his way she would have been raised here instead of Bear Island and then the Dreadfort. To him Arra is a precious mix of everything important to him. She is the echo of her mother, and Arya, and his own mother and even his beloved uncle (father). Arra should have been his and would have been if his wife would have ever been able to see past those pale eyes. 

The children if House Stark stand looking at this outsider with curiosity. There are four, and all are different. Prince Edrick, Princess Alys, Princess Minisa and Prince Harlon. All bear the name of Stark. Edrick with his flaming red hair and lavender eyes. Alys with her silver hair and blue eyes, her twin Minisa with grey eyes and silver hair. Harlong with his red hair and blue eyes. All stare at the elder sister none of them know. 

And all wonder what will happen now. 


	2. Swiftly Striking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Greatjon wonders if they have forged a mighty weapon for the North or its eventual downfall

There are not very man alive who remember Roose Bolton. Yes people know of his name of his deeds and actions. They will forever live on in infamy. But how many alive knew the man? Fought with him? Broke bread with him in his hall? He is the the Greatjon Umber and now he is old. So old he can feel it in his bones. Yes he is old, and with that age comes memory and wisdom. He knew Roose Bolton. He fought with him and bled with him and planned with him. He may not have known the bastard as well as he should have. But still he knew enough. As for the past ten years he has watched Arra Bolton grow. As the regent of her lands he has watched and seen first hand. He has seen flashes of Roose in the girl. 

It is in the way she speaks and acts. She speaks softly and forces people to listen. She chooses her words carefully and rarely has he seen her raise her voice in anger. She is guarded and calculating. Everything she does is with a purpose. Yes the Bolton blood is strong in her. And those eyes would make anyone cringe and look away. But the Greatjon has forced himself to look and hold her gaze. And it in those eyes that he has seen something else many have overlooked. The Stark spirit and strength flows through her veins and spine. She may be a Bolton in name and House but the blood of the Kings of Winter also is hers. 

It is in the way she keeps herself strong as all brush her aside. In the way she has refused to let her name break her. In the way she has made herself into someone mighty. Starks are wolves and they are meant to have a pack, a family. Arra Bolton is a wolf who was forced to be alone. And sometime he wonder what this will mean for the North. 

His queen, Sansa Stark, was forced to learn hard lessons when she was thrust into the South and its hells. Arra Bolton was born breathing these lessons. Since she was a child they have become engrained in her every pore. Yes, sometime he wonders if she will be the downfall of the North or maybe it's greatest weapon. 

He is shaken from his thoughts and is taken back to the training courtyard in Winterfell. The lady Arya Stark is fighting with anyone who challenges her, Knights from Dorne and wildlings from the Wall. All have come for the name day or the figure King of the North. Area Stark fights like a shadow. Swift and deadly, she is graceful and strikes true. The atmosphere is jolly and all are laughing as the man picks himself out of the mud laughing at his swift defeat at the hands of the Lady Stark. 

"Are there any more victims for me?" She bellows and smirks and none move foreword. But suddenly the mood is broken when a figure steps through the crowd and says, "There is one if she will have me." The crowd parts like a wave as Arra Bolton walks up. She drops her cloak into the hands of her loyal servant Berron Snow, after Arya nods tensely. 

Arya Stark is skinny and lean. She is a mystically type beauty that Lyanna was famous for. She is slight of height but uses it all to her advantage. Her hair is short as a mans and she cares little for ceremony. 

Arra Bolton could be her twin with that Stark hair and facial shape. Her body is lean with muscle and she is taller than her aunt. Her long dark hair is wrapped in a braided crown around her head. She is dressed in black trousers and tunic with well worn boots. 

stark  draws her long thin sword. Bolton in turn draws two short swords from her belt. They are as long as her forearm and deadly. Double sided edged with a plain handle they almost seem to gleam in the scant light of the courtyard. She stands at the ready and then Stark moves. 

The Greatjon draws breath and watches as metal clangs and the dance begins. Stark is bringing a nightly offense and does her best to knock the Bolton on her ass. She is all intuition and natural ability. The Bolton meanwhile fights with cunning and strategy. 

The Greatjon was there when Arra struggled to hold and blade and nearly cut off her own hand more than once. He knows how hard she had to work to become as skilled as she is. He knows how she has fought wildlings and brought in teaches from as far South as Dorne. He knows she studied and bled for this, he doubts the Stark knows or cares. And he sees what she is doing.

Arya Stark likes to end the fights quickly. She has mighty skill and is fast. But Arra Bolton had endurance brought from years of running along the riverbanks around the Dreadfort. Arra decided a long time ago that is she could not best her opponents she would outlast them. For Arra survival is always the name of the game. And that is what she is doing now. 

Arya Stark has drawn blood as has her niece but they both refuse to stop. Stark is trying to be vicious and swift. Bolton moving around and dodging as if she had all the time in the world. And he can see Stark growing tired. 

It ends with Stark screaming and diving at the Bolton knocking a blade out of her hand. The thin sword comes to rest upon her chest. She smiles in victory but it fades when she feels the blade in the side of her neck. It ends in a draw. No one speaks a word. The Bolton smirks slightly and then mockingly bows. Berron Snow comes faithfully to her side and hands her back her cloak. And with cuts bleeding from her cheek and arms she gracefully throws her cloak over her shoulders and marches out of the courtyard.

Stark is struggling to stand and the Greatjon see how tired she is, physically and mentally. The wound bleeding on her side can not be helping matter. And then he turns and sees along the ramparts a woman with hair as red as fire gripping the railing so tight her knuckles are white. His queen was watching the match and she looks deathly pale and shaken. He wonders what's he is thinking. 


	3. Silent Screams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the crypt she stares up at the face of Ned Stark and wonders if she is cursed.

 

It is early in the morning when she finally makes her way down into the crypts. Early enough that the sky is still blue and the servants are just beginning to awaken. Early enough that her eyes are still slightly blurry and that she wants nothing more than to retreat into her warm furs and pretend she is anywhere but here, in the crypts of the home of the family she has never been a part of.

Arra Bolton walks down the corridor and looks at the faces chiseled out of stone. Most share the same facial features. The long face and heavy brows and square chin. All look weather worn yet strong. All were Kings of Winter and Wardens of the North. All carry the name Stark. It makes her feel like she is unworthy to even breath in the stale and cold air of this tomb.

She stops in front of the man who is her grandfather. The man she sometimes dreams would love her. Who would hold her in his arms and make her laugh. These are dreams shebcouldnlose herself in. These are dreams that she would give anything to make into a reality. She never knew Eddard Stark. But she feels like she does.

more than once when he was drunk off ale Arra would ask the Greatjon for tales of the man who wore his honor like a shield and whose skills in battle were legend. And so the man, drunk out of his mind, would take pity on her and tell her every memory and tale he would remember. Soon other members of his party would join in. These stories were the ones she would mutter to herself to help her fall asleep. These are the tales Arra Bolton loved the most. But they are not the only tales she was told as a child.

After she left Bear Island and it's safe isolation she came to the Dreadfort. And with it came the nightmare of the Bolton name and its legacy if blood and treachery. All that resided there were wildlings that were given permission by Lord Umber to help repopulate the lands and an old woman who is the closest thing Arra has ever had to a mother. Her name is Dara Flint and she is the elder half sister of Roose Bolton by way of their mother. A bastard married to a Flint who was in turn widowed and then returned back to the Dreadfort. Dara allow stayed and kept the place alive even after the horrors of Ramsay Snow and his reign. Dara alone was spared due to the accounts of her abuse and torture at the hands of Ramsay. Her missing right eye and half of her left fingers are testament of this. Dara Flint raised Arra and it was Dara who told her great niece the stories and showed her the secrets of the Dreadfort.

It was Dara who showed her the secret chambers located deep into the bowels of the Dreadfort. The chambers that hold the skins if the enemies of the Boltons. Where journals written from times long past are kept. Journals filled with tales of the Red Kings and their fall to the Starks. Chambers that Ramsay Snow was never shown by his father. Chambers filled with long tucked away gold and silver never to be touched unless the future of House Bolton was at stake.

It was this coin Dara used to bring men from Dorne to teach Arra how to fight and men from Essos to teach her of the world. It was this coin she used to ensure that the only living member of the most treacherous and hates House of the North would be able to somehow survive. Of course Dara did so subtly and in the shadows. After all if The Queen of the North ever discovered the riches she would without a doubt seize it claiming it for herself and her House.

Yes Dara was the closest thing Arra ever had to a mother. But she was not the mother Arra wanted. Dara was devoted to her elder brother for reasons that she rarely spoke of and only told Arra of when she was sixteen. They have never spoken of the reasons since then. When Arra was a child it was Lyanna Mormont who she admired and loved. lyanna with her mighty will and tongue and temperment. Leanna who was fierce and cold and always gave Arra a smile and a warm yet stilted greeting. But the loyalty House Mormont possessed would always outweigh any affection she possessed for the child of a monster. And so when Queen Sansa bid Lyanna send her to the Dreadfort she did.nno matter how much Arra screamed and cried.

She remembers that day. She remembers being forced from her bed and the island that had been her home for as long as she could remember. She remembers crying for Lady Lyanna and she can still hear she cries. Filled with sorrow and the sense of betrayal that still lingers in her bones. She remembers the conflicted yet resolute on the face of Lady Layanna Mormont. She remembers a woman who would fight with any opponent but who would not fight a queen to keep a child who she had said she loved.

It had broken her heart and taught her a lesson. She was all alone in the world. It taught her none could be trusted. It taught her to never let herself be hurt again. She she would never let anyone close enough to even get the chance to hurt her. That was the day her heart turned to stone. That was the day she would never love anyone. That was the day she decided she would never be weak.

That day taught Arra Bolton many things. It taught her the world was a cruel place. It it killed or be killed. A heart of stone was better than one mad dog cotton. Better to be hard and unyielding than soft and weak. And if there was one thing Arra Bolton would be remembered for it was not that she was soft and weak.

The day Arra Bolton was forced onto a shop with strangers destined for a place far away with only a bloody legacy left to inherit was also the time she discovered something about herself. It is something has defined her; constant as the cold and as hard as mountains. Arra Bolton hates Sansa Stark, Queen of the North. She hates her. With every breathe in her body and every bone that aches with abdondonment and a loneliness that has never truly abated.

She hates the woman who gave birth to her. She hates the woman who Brienne of Tarth had reluctantly told her had tried to kill her days old baby. She hates Sansa Stark. And that will never change.


	4. Sister Dearest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edrick looks at the woman standing in the godswood looking at the weir wood tree. He looks into her eyes and does not flinch. It is then he decides to spurn his mother. He will try to be Arra Bolton. He will do his best to be worthy to call her family.

Edrick Stark is thirteen years old. He has flaming red hair and lavender eyes and according to his father he is the spitting image of his uncle Robb Stark, once called the Young Wolf. More than once Edrick has gone down to the crypts to gaze upon the image of the man who nearly led the North to ruin all for honor. Ed has grown up hating the word. His father is one of the most honorable men Ed has ever known. His mother is honorable only in the way she would destroy anyone who would stand in the way of her kingdom or family. 

He has heard the whispers and he has gotten snippets of the story from some of the servants. But no one was ever willing to tell him much about his elder sibling Arra. He knows she was born in Winterfell and then sent To Bear Island after the war was won when she was barely three. Then sent to the Dreadfort where she was guided by the hand of Dara Flint, her great aunt and where the GreatJon Umber kept watch. Tormund has spent much time there with the wildling who settled in the land. Brienne, Tormund's wife and one of the most devoted of their people, called Arra a bold and strong individual. Tormund called her cold and her eyes. His father Jon, who made the effort to visit the Dreadfort every few years, clearly loved the girl. But to Ed Arra was a mystery. One he very much wanted to solve. 

Pin the three days since her arrival Arra has kept much to herself. She sits in the meallhall joined only by her faithful and silent servant Berron Snow and Tormund and his brood on occasion. She is silent and her face berths nothing. But Ed sees her watching and he knows that she is not someone to underestimate. Seeing her fight his aunt Arya to a draw made the wheels in his head turn. 

Ed is a warg like much of his family. He has a direwolf named Ash. A pack roams the wolfwood, some wild and others beloved of the Starks. He has sent Ash to observe the elder teen more than once. And every time his giant wolf has come close to the girl she has merely stared at the beast and walked away. But this morning was different. She had been emerging from the crypts when Ash had walked up behind her.

arra Bolton, with pain in her eyes and her facade angrily broken had said in a cold hard voice, "Stop spying on me boy. If you have something to say do it like a man. Face me!" And has walked away angrily. Shaken Ed had left Ash's mind. And almost as if on instinct he had left his room hastily dressed and gone to the gods wood.

upon entering he sees her with her hair braided hanging down her back. She is look at the weir wood tree with her back to him. It is then he notices it. There are at least a dozen Ravens and crows in the branches of the tree. Not one makes a sound and it unnerves him. His mind is screaming at him to be careful but he knows in his heart something is about to change. Something that could make or break him. So he summons that stupid and reckless courage that his father often says will kill him one day. 

He takes a step foreword. And in the moment Arra Bolton turns and those snow whit Reyes meet his. Simultaneously all the birds look and lock eyes with him as well. He looks into those eyes and he sees beyond the hard exterior. He sees a loneliness and an ache. So he meets her eyes and does not flinch. He strides foreword and stops until he is close to her. At thirteen he is growing but she is still taller than him. He holds out his hand and takes a deep breath, "Hello my name is Ed. And you are Arra." He pauses and hesitates before summoning that nerve once more and begins again, "You are Arra; my sister." 

And the silence in those few seconds scares him more than anything that follows. Looking back this moment will define him more than anything in his life. This moment will change everything.

She stares hard into his eyes and he feels as if she is looking into his soul. And in that moment he feels it in the back of his mind, he feels the moment he is not himself. He feels he moments she enters his mind. And then just as quickly it is gone. And he is shaken. He knows about wa gas who can enter the minds of men. He knows how it is forbidden and an insult to the gods. But still he stares into her eyes. He knows it is test. And he will not fail her or himself. 

After an eternity her hand comes and graphs his with a strong grip. "Hello Ed."

In that moment Arra Bolton slightly smiles and Edrick Stark feels his world shift. He has always had sisters. Ones younger than him that he was always told to protect. But now he has an elder one. Another to protect and another to care for. His heart expands and envelops her with all the naive hopes and wonder of a boy still not old enough to understand the pain of his mother and the hatred his sister holds. But still in this moment he is a boy who want to know the sibling he has been denied his entire life. This is the woman who will save his life. She will become one of the most important people in his life. 

But in this moment, though none of them know it yet, is the time he will break his mother's heart and forever break their family in ways they will never recover from completely. 


End file.
